India becomes the fourth nation to land on the moon
The landing module Vikram of the Indian space probe Chandrayaan-3 successfully lands on the moon. The nation makes history.
India's space agency ISRO has succeeded in its second attempt. The landing module Vikram of the Chandrayaan-3 probe successfully landed on the moon on 23 August at 12:32 UTC. This makes the country a major player in space travel. India is only the fourth nation to achieve a soft landing on the satellite. Previously, the Soviet Union achieved this with Luna 9 on 3 February 1966, the USA with Surveyor 1 on 2 June 1966 and China with Chang'e 3 on 14 December 2013.
The journey of Chandrayaan-3 began on 14 July at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the South Indian island of Sriharikota. The probe lifted off from there with an LVM3 rocket. Three weeks later, on 5 August, it was successfully launched into lunar orbit.
Vikram weighs over 1700 kilograms and is around two metres tall. It is the first module ever to land near the south pole of the moon. Vikram also contains a rover with a wide range of research equipment. This will now explore the surroundings for a maximum of two weeks. It will carry out chemical analyses of the lunar surface. There is ice in the landed region, which scientists believe could contain oxygen, fuel and water for future missions.
The name "Chandrayaan" of the space mission translates as "moon vehicle". The predecessor mission Chandrayaan-2 actually aimed for a soft landing, but its module crashed onto the satellite due to communication problems.
Livestream of the moon landing:
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